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Tutorial 9. Develop an implementation plan • Automate large meters first? • Implement high-cost meter read routes? • High demand meter read routes with NRW recovery? • Specific pressure zones or geographic areas? • Include concurrent meter replacement? • How much annual investment? • • • 10. • • • • • • • Market the implementation plan Educate decision makers Educate customers Include non-economic benefits Developing Short- And Long-Term Functional Requirements As suggested in step 3 of the 10-step approach, it is important to collaboratively determine short- and long-term required and desired meter-reading system functional requirements. AMI can support an ever-growing list of requirements, since meter reading application functionality is expanding as rapidly as AMI technology itself. Solutions may also come from the growing array of add-on devices that monitor other related activities, such as noise, pressure, and water quality. Desirable water utility reading system functions include: • • Accurate/reliable readings for billing End-to-end cybersecurity for AMI database Both manual and AMI capability in the utility meter readers A demonstrated migration path (from drive-by AMR to fixed network AMI without hardware change) On-cycle and off-cycle meter reading for customer service and demand trending Detection of leaks, tampering, or theft of service Reverse-flow detection Customer web portal access to data Conservation monitoring and enforcement. Additional desired functionality may include nonrevenue water measurement, distribution system leak detection, system-wide peak demand characterization, integration with supervisory control and data acquistion (SCADA) (production, storage, pumping, etc.), integration with SAP/Oracle/SQL, linkage to geographic information systems (GIS), linkage to an asset management system, and reliable and secure data storage and transmission. Each element of functionality has a cost associated with independent manual activity and a cost for AMR, AMI, or hybrid system enhancement. Specific cost assumptions Figure 1: Example assumptions for business case cost comparisons Item Description Manual Read AMI (Fixed) 1 Number of meter readers 3 Miles per month for reading per vehicle 4 Number of persons handling re-reads, etc. 5 Manual turn on/off and re-reads per day per person 6 Number of re-reads per month 7 Remote turn on/turn off 8 Miles per month for re-reads per vehicle 7731 9 Average industry cost per meter read $1.00 10 Daily meter reads per reader (average) 11 Mileage unit cost 12 Number of turn on/turn off per month 13 Turn on/turn off cost per order 14 Number of endpoints 15 Unit price endpoint hardware 16 Unit price endpoint installation 17 Collector base stations - number 0 28 18 Collector base stations - unit cost 0 $70,000.00 19 Initial software licensing/configuration cost 20 16 Hourly labor cost (meter reader) 2 $40.00 $40.00 31 0 New AMR/AMI compatible Encoder cost 2000 0 49 10 10 10 2577 0 $150.00 0 450 no limit $0.510 $0.510 5000 5000 $40.00 $40.00 200,000 200,000 $120.00 wateronline.com $50.00 $50,000.00 $0.00 ■ Water Online The Magazine $60.00